Topics: Experiences in Midwest logging camps as a girl. Family adversity and development of
Idaho ranch. Schooling and teaching. Favorite horse. Homesteading rough land near
Juliaetta
(1918). 4-29-76 2 hr 54p

when Raleigh came invalided home from Moscow, it was about 1916- it was about two years before, let's see, we were married in '18, there was a man who had filed on it and then threw it up because he didn't want it. And this is true, because the place where the Johnson is, Mc that white house, is the old Albright house. They, too bought an exemption from the person that had filed earlier. Andhis person-fhoped that there would be coal; there was a big rush, and the old mine hole, they thought there was coal in the area, because when you go from here to Lewiston you see.black stuff that came down. Well, and there is coalbut it such small veins, so then they threw it up when it didn't do anything. And, Raleigh had filed,bought the exemption for twenty-five dollars. And then he took it over because itjoined his parents' pasture. And then, after we lived on it and proved up on it, a hundred and sixty acres, then we took another op tion on this government land over here. And that's why it was late, because it's rough land.

SS: When you say rough—

LA: Hilly, stony, just like this back there, look out there Sam. You

see how it is? And the only thing you ever could do on it, would be to pasture it, or some of the people thought at one time that they could plant trees. Now, the pine trees Agrow. Apple trees, seedling apple trees have grown up there and you know how it is, people that don't have land, and have a chance to get some free land, and some of the fellows thought they could prove up on it, and some of them did. And then got a job in Lewiston and would work, or in Moscow and work. And then another thing, we had the rural schools and it was easier for them to send their kids to rural schools than it was to move to Lewiston and attend the school, and this sort of thing. And so, all they had to do was live there, if they could make a living anywhere, and they could have cows and chickensand a garden, if they could find a spot little enough and level enough. Our homestead shack was across in a gulch, and it was fourteen by sixteen; Raleigh went up there with a pick and a shovel and an old horse and dug out a place and we put the corner of that twelve by sixteen— this corner was about six feet in the ground and that cor ner was eight feet off the ground on a post. And we lived there and proved up on it. Lived there two and a half years. You had to move onto it in the first six months, you see, and it took three years to prove up on 'em. And we carried in our water, because the only water that was available was in the creek and that wasn't fit to drink. So, we carried it in bottles from over at the homestead and carried in our food. And, it wasn't too bad. (Chuckles)

SS: How far did you have to hike in then with the water? Was this from

Raleigh's parents' place?

LA: Yeah. Oh, what? Quarter of a mile.

SS: Uphill, pretty much?

LA: Oh, no, along the hillside. Oh, a little bit, but then, you start

from the river and then just gradually angle off round there, it wasn't too difficult.

SS: Twelve by sixteen—

LA: Fourteen by sixteen.

SS: Im talking about the size of the lookout that I had.

LA: Oh, yes. Well, we had a little tiny stove, a little homesteader's

stove with four holes and a little tiny oven. And, I'm a tall girl so Raleigh put it up on a stand. He built a wooden stand, and we put the four little legs up there so that I could cook without bending over. And that :of the cupboard was my kitchen and I had the spices and the flour and the stuff in a little thing about this big, and the dishes were next to it, and the table was right next to And that was right by the foot of the bed. Then we had a big shelf, that Raleigh put up, with a curtain around it, and that was our clothescloset. And on top of it was our, oh, we put hats and we put special books, and then on the other corner that we had— this big chair, by the way— Raleigh went — was in Moscow and he went to a sale, a furniture sale that was selling out up there, and for fifteen dollars he bought this little chair and it's solid oak. This is the original seat, we've had it or three times and I see it's got aVAin here, but then, after fifty-eight years, what do you expect? And this is the only thingI brought. This is the thing we took with us. And I've rocked all my children in that. We had a cradle, of course, and over the bed when the children came we strung a clothesbasket, you know Papa and Mama could sleep down here and the baby was in the clothesbasket. (Chuckles) You have to be very inventive, Sam, when you live . And Raleigh had put a nice floor in it. Sometimes it was real rough. Some of the shacks thalk've seen, they were board with cracks in them, but Raleigh was a perfectionist and his father was a carpenter, and so because the bride was a schoolteacher, they put a good floor in it, which I was very thankful for. And then we had construction— you may not know what construction paper is- it was a felt paper- on the inside a felt paper that used to be laid under shingles on the outside of a house and sometimes on the inside they would put little panelling up and put this paper under there. Well, that was the only paper we had, and we never did get the inside and just tarpaper on the outside with laths on it, and one inch boards. But, it was warm because of the paper.We got along very well. After the other chil dren came, why, we- every time we had anew baby we'd put a shed on one side or the other. But, we moved down- that wasn't the original shack because we rented Indian land that was next to it, where we could get a little bit closer because we had to get our children out to school. And so, that was the one that we put the additions on.

SS: So the original cabin you never did enlarge.

LA: No, we never enlarged that.

SS: You did have your first children there?

LA: No. The baby was not born there because my mother-in-law was bound

and determined that I should have a doctor in attendance, naturally. So, the doctor wouldn't go over there, so we went over to her house and the baby was born there. And the three children were born there and then the last baby was born in the homestead that we had on the Indian place and that's just right up here —

SS: How many years did you actually live in your own homestead cabin?

On your homestead.

LA: We actually lived there about two years, really, to stay there. We because

Raleigh- we had to make a living, and there was a crop fail ure that third year, so he went back to the mechanical work and went to Troy andspent the summer there in Troy, because there was about a hundred and sixty dollars that we had to pay, you know for theJ I can't remember just what that was— it was in lieu of fences, be cause the fences were on top of that hill up there, and there's no road up there, and we didn't have any horse at the time, we had to use my father-in-law's horses; and how do you get a horse up there to take posts and wire and so forth? There was only three acres up there, so we did till it, but we didn't fence it, and in lieu of that, why then, we could pay an extra— there was an extra amount there. And Raleigh went to Troy and he was one of the original good auto mechanics, and so he earned enough money to pay our— to pay that and buy our food for the winter. And soothe next year, we rent ed the Indian land, because Raleigh had been in the market garden ing business and this was a good thing for him, and he was outdoors where he needed to be. And so, that's when we movedthe shack down on the river bank, over here on the Indian land. We still used the homestead for pasture, which was as intended in the first place, and we were lucky enough to pick up some old range cows that they really were fattening for butcher. And Raleigh found out that they were bred and so he came home and he said, "You know, if we could get those cows— if we could afford to get those cows— we would have the calves and then if one of them turned out to be a milker, we'd have a milkcow for the youngsters. So, I took the last hundred and twelve dollars of the money I'd saved from teaching school and we bought those cows. By golly, they all had calves! And this is the way you get along. So, that's that.

SS: Your husband's inclination to farm: was farming what he really

wanted to do, more than mechanicing?

LA: No, he would rather have been a mechanic, but he had a disability

that he couldn't. In the old days, you know, mechanics instead of having hoists that they could put the cars up, they had to lay on a roller thing, you know, on the concrete floor. When he was a kid, that was before I knew him, the railroad people had their own fences and there was a pipe gate, like this, with barb wire through it, and kidlike, he was going after the cows and he decided he wouldn't bo ther to open the gate and jumped over it, and he fell and dislocated and hit his side and dislocated those vertebrae; bothered him all his life and he could no longer lay on the concrete and do the work that he was supposed to do. And the doctor told him— he had this good friend in Moscow that was a doctor and he used to drive for him because he needed to be out in the country, and Raleigh was a good driver.

SS: Doctor?

LA: Oh, the hospital, what's that name?

SS: Gritman?

LA: Yeah, Gritman. Yeah, Raleigh drove Dr. Gritman in his early days.

SS: And Dr. Gritman had probably the first car in the area. I am told

about him driving all around the country.

LA: Okay. Well, Raleigh was the person that drove him and taught him

to drive and when he 4 drive he drove him. And he kept the car in excellent condition and he liked it. And it was Dr. Gritman that finally said, "Kid,you can't do this. You've got to get out. You've got to get away from here. You can't do this, because your kidneys are in such shape that I won't guarantee you i more than five years." Well, it scared Raleigh, naturally, and so his folks, then said, "Why don't you come on home? You'll be out and you can help us on the market gardening." And so, when I came down he was working with his own People at market gardening. And then when it turned out that I would stay and that we would be married, we had to make some provisions. Well, Raleigh already had this thing so Pa and all of 'em got together and they built that little cabin over there, because we were supposed to live on it. Raleigh, before he was married wouldn't have to because his home was with his people. But after you get married, it changes your status. And the we thought of putting up a tent, but I wasn't too happy with a tent. My motherin- law says, "Oh, no, my goodness, you're not going to live in a tent-" So, she was the one that put the finger on the boys to get the lum ber over there. And tht is what happened.

SS: So, the cabin was built by the family, really?

LA: Yes. Oh, yes. I didn't do anything with it at all. I went home that

summer and then that spring, I had a seven month's school there, and I was home a month , and then the 7th of May we were married and I came back and the cabin was all built. But, no one lived in it but us. After we left, we left some stuff stored there, and the first cycldne that I ever saw in this country, blew it down. Scattered it all up and down. And my sterling silverware was scattered all up and down the hillside and we had to retrieve it. (Chuckles)

SS: I didn't know there were cyclones.

LA: We have terrible winds here. When I said cyclones, you were think

ing of a tornado thing.

SS: Yeah.

LA: No, a cyclonic wind is just a terrible wind. In fact, last Easter

Sunday we had another one. We seem to get it in the spring. Two Easter Sundays, and it wrecked my grandson's building over here. He felt real badly about it because he says, "The only things are wrecked are the things I built." Well, ho built an open shed, and he thought he had the studs buried deep enough, but he didn't, and the wind just naturally pulled 'em off and blew it over behind the old build ing and smashed it away.

SS: The same thing happened the other night on the ridge where I live

and it blew off part of the roof on the barn, and it went smashing into an old truck that we have and bent the frame on the cab.

LA: And which ridge is that?

SS: Little Bear.

LA: Oh, Little Bear Ridge. Well, then you know.

SS: Yeah, it's bad.

LA: Was this just this past ?

SS: This was the night before last.

Oh, it was! Oh, that's part of that wind— the blizzard that we had in Montana, then. But they said that the storm was going down— you see, where Helena is, up there, goes down the Pocatello way, instead of coming down our way, and it was real wind.

Let me ask you: How you decided you were interested in becoming a

teacher.

I was the oldest of a large family, and as the oldest girl with an

ill mother, I had been taking charge of the family more or less, and I graduated from high school at Gifford, c? tne first class in the Gifford High School, way back in 1916. And, I had been teaching, filling in, a long time, and I found that it was just real fun to teach the lower grades while I was this high school kid, you know. There's just something— the gleam in a youngsters eye when he catches that gleam of what you're trying to teach him. And, I needed to make some moneyj to get a job and make some money. Because my mother was a teacher she encouraged me, so I went to Moscow and took the examination and taught. That's how I got my and I loved it, I loved to teach. I taught four terms before I was married. And when I say four terms— I taught two full terms and then filled in for other teachers that for some reason or other didn't fill their- In fact, one year I taught my own seven month's term in Jack's Canyon up here, a little rural school. I went home to Look out and that teacher had— was ill and couldn't finish, and accor ding to the law they had to have seven months, and there was still three monthsthat wasn't finished. And then, that was the reason that I came down here, because that teacher ran away and got mar ried and she didn't finish hers, so I had to teach six weeks there to finish out seven months here. And, so, that's the way. Then, that fall— I wasn't going to teach at all, because my mother was still bedridden and was ill, and because teachers were scarce— you see, we were teaching for sixty and sixty-five dollars a month, and most of the young people were getting more than that at the timeand I had planned to stay home and take care of my mother. Then we had a new county superintendent, a Mrs. Foster, and I think if Miss Redfield had stayed, she knew the situation, and would not have the pressure on me, but Mrs. Foster sent me a kind of a nasty letter saying, "Well, the State has granted you a certificate, and if you're not going to use it, maybe we should give it to someone else." It wasn't quite that bald, but it frightened me because I had spent my savings in summer school and had raised my certificate from a third grade to a second grade. So, I showed it to my father and he said, "Well, Honey, I guess you'd better go." So, I took the next train in the middle of October and came down here and I've been here ever since. (Chuckles)

SS: This job was waiting for you then?

LA: I guess so. I guess so. I had all grades. It's a good thing I'd

had before. I had eighteen pupils; all grades and ages from five and a half to eighteen. You see, that's the rural school that you get into and it takes some doing to keep that many pupils interested and occupied and so on. But pupils in a rural school, as a rule, will oh, look after little kids. These youngsters that were so young were walking two and a half miles in snow and sleet. And, no buses in those days, you know. And so, two of 44 children would see that they got home, because I was worried, too, you can't turn a five osix year kid out in a storm to walk three or four miles.

SS: What was the name of the school?

LA: Pilot Rock. Now, when you came down from Moscow—

SS: I came through Juliaetta.

LA: When you come from Juliaetta, you didn't realize when you were going

across the bridge to that little creek and then that big rocky thing comes down, you go around and you saw avhome there, well, that's my old schoolhouse. That's the old Pilot Rock schoolhouse. When we consolidated in 1949-1951, I worked on the county committee- I'd been forty-one years in School Board work, after I quit teaching they put me on the School Board. And so I worked there and so I was named a member of the Consolidation Committee for Nez Perce County, and I was there to consolidate that rural school, you see, wilh the Lapwai District. And, it was interesting to me, because in the old days, I had tried to interest them in consolidating with Juliaetta, which seemed fine; they already had buses coming down off the ridges and I thought, "Well, we're close enough, why not take those pupils up there?" And then I worked on the Board to consolidate and sent 'em clear over to Because Juliaetta was consolidated wiht Kendrick, see.

SS: Well, your background what you had to learn to teach— you took summer

school courses? Is that.way you got there? You did this at the University at Moscow?

LA: Yes.

SS: Did this take very long, to be?

LA: Six weeks— six to nine weeks. Its a summer course. I would go in

about in June and stay til, oh, the last of July or the middle of Aug ust, and then— Well, you had to work, but, it wasn't any harder, really than for me to prepare and have the lessons ready for eight grades of school teaching! And, we were supposed to have a lesson plan, so that when our District Superintendent would come to visit, it was posted on the wall. I usually wrote right on the :f?oard, because I change it. And you had to coordinate and corelate the seven subjects from the fifth grade to the eighth grade. They all had their own degree of geography, reading, spelling, physiology. You went through that, didn't you? Or didn't you have all those things when you went to school?

SS: I had that pretty much.

LA: And so, I would corelate. Now for instance, in physiology, I would—

a physiology book that is right for a seventh and eighth gradej they have to read that, and so I would have that as a reading lesson. And then I could— and then spelling, sometimes I would put the fourth and fifth grades together, and they would have spelling, and then I would appoint some of the youngsters, that would like to, to hear this spel ling. And it was interesting because they had to correct it. And if they didn't correct it, why then, they got a mark down. I mean, if they didn't notice that it was spelled wrong, and we had spelling books in those days. It wasn't all oral spelling. And so, it was easy to delegate some of And then we had to teach penmanship. Well, I had to work that in, too, because, some of those— you'd be surprised the sixth graders would be better penmen at old Spencerian, where you did it, you know— so the youngsters— And, I'd make a test of it. Not real school, because you can't expect a fourth and fifth grader whtcn are getting to that age where they're pretty independent, to look to a seventh and eighth grader with authority unless they want to. So, we would have spelling bees, and we would have writing bees and we would have afternoon reading hours and invite the mothers in and, oh, I did all kinds of things.

SS: You had the parents come in and take part in it?

LA: Well, listen, some of them did that were interested, and some of them

couldn't be bothered, you know how it is. But the teacher was always expected to have a Literary, too. Every week. Oh, boy! And so, I'd say, "Well, look, Elmer, for instance, he was a slow learner. If you would learn this verse of six lines, you can be in the Literary Friday." Well, sometimes it worked. And then, the singing, we had an old organ there. Thank goodness I'd had a little family music les sons, and so, we diAour singing. And two or three of the youngsters would be a little better, and so, we'd have some solos and we had some duets, and — The schoolteachers in those days were looked to for— I wonder how to say this— for the intellectual leadership of a community. And this Literary business was part of it. And, the part that I didn't like was, every Friday night they had a debate. And this was for the— not for the school children— but for the community. And, my trouble with the debate, was to keep it from being too personal. Acrimonious. And to keep the themes decent. You get into a back woods and there's a certain element that ha L barnyard sense of hum or. Sense of humor. And, oh, it's amazing! And you shouldn't alien ate those people. And, how do you do it nicely? (Chuckles)

SS: Well, what would the kind of subject be that they might be carried away

with?

LA: Well, there was a neighbor up the last ravine that had a range bull

and he was— they never could keep him there, and he would get out and breed any cow within five miles that was in heat. And so, some of the people's better rge cows and the(Vmilk cows would be bred by this range bull that was neither a milk or what have you, and so that cpoil ed the cow's year's work, became, all you could do with that calf, would be to kill him. So, Levi came up one day and he said, "I have a good one," So, on the board he wrote, "Resolved: that Levi's bull-" "Resolved: That every cow that Levi's bull impregnates, can charge the owner of the cow for stud services." WOW! So, then, on the other side, the next one came back, and this was a woman, and she still lives up there, she, "Hell with that. I will put a better one up there." So she went up and wrote: "Everybody that has a cow that is impregnated by that bull can sue him for damages." And, so—

SS: So, there you are, in the middle.

LA: They thought it was going to throw me, I think. And then, another sil

ly one, was— in those days they didn't wear long hair, and one OT the 0 men there had gone up in the woods to work and when he came home, he had the prettiest curly hair you ever saw. He was a Grosclo§g And there was a Negro strain that family, way back, and you know how beau tiful that hair is, that Negro hair that comes down, and so he came to Literary and he didn't cut it. So, one of the thingsAwe debated that was whether we should cut MfrndQ1 hair or not. Just entertainment. Just crazy stuff. Well, then on the serious side, that was about the time that they talked con solidation, and we really had several sessions of whether or not the schools should be consolidated. And this was a serious one, but from the ridiculous to the serious, I gave you that. If you didn't, your folks probably had some of these experiences. Did they homestead on

SS: No, my folks didn't. I came out here from the East. My parents grew

up in upstate New York. That's where I was born.

LA: I was born in Minnesota, too, near St. Paul. My father came out here

working for the Weyerhaeuser people as an estimator in opening new timber lands in Oregon, British Columbia, I lived up there when I was six years old. And then he finally lost his health in that terrible Minnesota fire that lasted six months, so he came back because he al ready owned the Lookout Lumber Company, that's how I got back here. And, of course, I've lived here ever since.

SS: How did that happen to him in losing his health in the fire?

LA: The terrible forest fires in the Wisconsin-Minnesota raged

— of getting the logs to the Lumber Company, which is in Park Falls, Wisconsin at the tiime. It was his job, he had charge of all the camps; the river, the logging and the railroad. And so when that fire raged so long there, they fought it, but in dry timber you just— it was about six weeks that my mother didn't know whether my fatherwas alive or not. And it was a terrible forest fire. And when he came home, he had breathed so much of the smoke, because he had a railroad car, was supposed to be on the railroad, but you can't send the men into a dangerous situation— he led his men and that's why he had been working all the time, you see, and had an extra dose. So, when he finally came home exhausted and sick, why, he ndedin the hospital. And in those days, there was no— they did pay the doctor bill and part of the hospital bill, but there was no sick leave, there was no sick payment, there was no compensation for lost wages, in those days, you know. It was just because my father had worked for the Weyerhaeuser people so long that they decided that they— he wasn't the only one, but there was some others, and it cost the company a mil lion dollars, we understand. And that was like saying a hundred and fifty million now, because they're used to it, but in those days they weren't used to it. And the Weyerhaeuser people were the first ones to put up money. I was a youngster about twelve years old, and I remem ber how concerned the family was. After all, the breadwinner was ill and incapacitated. And at that time, I was the oldest of six children. We had two and two boys and then twin girls, and when we came West the twins were nine months old. We came West on the train, settled at Lookout andeventually we had three others, so there was a large family of us. So, we had a good time. Large family. Grandpa and Grandma Lockridge was my father's father and mother— so we all lived together.

SS: They moved out about the same time?

LA: They were here before. My grandfather was a millwright, and he had

been hired to build the mill at Burke, Idaho— you know, it's on the hillside, and because of his reputation in Howard Lake, Minnesota— isn't this amazing?— he got this letter from the mining company, say ing, "We understand that you are a certified millwright. We have some problems. Are you interested?" So Grandpa came out early and he was intrigued with the mechanics of fixing that mill. Well, there was no power there and it had to be gravity. And you get the ore out here and it comes down and is washed and ground here and the gold is taken out and stuff, and then washed on. And he was there. So, my grand mother came out then and their last baby— isn't that funny? was born and is now buried in Lewiston before we came. Well, after Grandmotherafter the work was done— after the mill was built, they my grandfather didn't know just where to do. And at that time Lookout— this little town of Lookout was booming. They thought that there might be some min eral, gold, in the Old Jack's Canyon, and also, because they were get ting some up here at Clearwater, on the Clearwater River, and so every little stream that came up there, why, there was probably gold. And so, my grandfather was sent to Lookout to build a timber mill. A sawmill. That's how he got there. Andhe liked it and he enjoyed it, and he was getting older and my father had come in the meantime, and they had bought, as an investment, a couple of farms there, and so we had that land, and that's how we came out here.

SS: Well, at Burke, was he working in a sawmill there?

LA: No. That was the mining mill. But because he knew about stresses

and timbers and what have you, he

SS: Do you remember what company that was at Burke, by any chance?

LA: No I don't. It's been so long ago.

SS: It's not important, I just wanted to see if I could place it.

LA: But that was way, way back. I was trying to think of when that was.

SS: Probably in the '90's.

LA: I think it was 1903 and 1905— I know that it was 1912 when we came.

I could go down to Lewiston. The baby's dates are on the headstone down there.

LA: That has nothing to do with me.

SS: You as a young person, did you look at coming out here as an adventure?

Or were you full of worry about your father's health?

LA: I took it, as I remember; we were as a family, and my father needed to

come back out there and my mother, who had the responsibility, she was anxious to get back to a home. To a firem— you see back there, we didn't own any home. We just lived in company houses. And, because, she had the children and because — and then her father and mother, remember were at Lookout, and because my father needed to be out, it wasthe decision was her's as well as my father's too, to come West and be where they were. And, my father had been in Maine before when he was growing up, and he had this idea of geting some cows because the boys were growing up and he had to be sure that there was an opening for them, you know. So, he came West with the idea that he would get some Jersey cows; which he did. So, we milked cows and sold cream for a long time.

SS: He was no longer involved in the woodswork at all?

LA: No, no. The Lookout Lumber Company— How he happened to get that, was

he took it in on a debt long, long ago, and all of the merchantable timber, except some in the cnayon, had been sold off earlier and it was a stump ranch, and that's why he thought, "Well, you can't plow it til you get the stumps out." And in those days they took dynamite and dynamite — was expensive to blow them out— and so he had to have some way to make a living, you see; it was pasture, and it was good pasture, the wild grass was good wild grass, and he had two ponds on the place, and so the cows were the thing, and we got these Jersey cows. And they were good cows. In fact, I know now, that if they had tested some of them— because we had a Jersey cow that used to fill a three gallon pail twice aday, and that was for a Jersey cow. Dad was a good feeder and his cows did not have to run out to the straw stack in the wintertime. They always had a barn. They were always well fed because in Maine, you can't run your stock out. I guess they do now, because if they come West far enough, they could. And so, Dad's cows were always good cows. And we had thirty-three, and so everybody took turn at milking. And the cream checks, they weren't much, but they were regular and they cae in all the time. And then, we broke out more land. My father was able, I mean, being outdoors, you see, and being a strong man to begin with; he would get awfully tired and worn out, but I drove the horses for him when he broke out that and the big old breaking plow. Have you seen those breaking plows?

SS: Yes. Did you run one of those?

LA: I didn't run one, no. It was my job to drive the horses. But if you

ever get up to Lookout and you see what we called the Pleasant Hill Ranch, the Bald Knob is the tallest knob up there, that was my special refuge, and so we decided that we would break it. So we did. We broke it out, and I drove the six-horse team, because I handled the horses, and my father had to handle the plow because it is a heavy breaking plow, and many times I've seen it throw him, because there was stump roots; they were pine roots. But we broke out four fields there, and it was new land and the wheat that we would plant made a great difference, and then, of course, some of it— well, my father put into— alfalfa was just coming in— he liked the red cpverAtimothyand that was a good pasture, too, and we put some of that in on the rougher, steeper onesKthat, and then alfalfa came. But alfalfa in those days would bloat, and we had to be careful because our cows were sensitive to it. So there was a lot of things we had to do, but we managed. Finally the younger kids went to Rubins to school but my sis ter and I graduated from Gifford. The first high school there, est19 ablished high school, and I was the first class; three girls of us. Frances Rice and Lors Albright— Brackett— and Gertrude Brabner. Ger trude Brabner was going to be a teacher, but she died of pneumonia be fore she could be. Frances and I both taught. We decided that that was for us, so we both turned out to be teachers.

SS: Well now, just so I understand it— Did he have to buy much to feed

the cattle? Or did you pretty much grow what you needed to keep them?

LA: Yes, the only thing that my father had to buy was the salt and the min

erals because— My father was a horseman, and he was an excellent horse man. And so, the reasoning that if a horse that worked needed this, a cow that gave milk needed it too. And so, his Jerseys were well kept, and because of this, they had excellent calves. And my father got a registered Jersey bull, a young yearling calf, — before that we just picked up a bull wherever we could, that was a Jersey bull and sometimes we even crossed the cows with the Herefords, because we were selling the calves as meat, you see. Well then, as his cows grew in reputation, and became famous, it was silly not to take advantage— because he was good enough businessman so that he knew that he ought to get those thorobred calves. So then, I remember, he traded two coltssold two colts— he always said traded them, because he had to take aif he could have kept them another year and broken them . himself, you see, they'd have been worth more as a horse that was broken. And so— but, he sold them, greenbroke, as they say, which means you could lead them, and all this sort of thing and handle them, but they weren't broken. A horse that really works, he has to be taught to work, be cause you just can't put the harness on him and expect him to know what to do, you know, to work. So, my father never sold his horses un til they had had about five years experience in his hands. And, so he traded these green— let the man have them fereenbroke, because he felt that he would go ahead with them, and he took that money and went to Portland, Oregon up and down the Oregon Coast, they had great dairies there, and most of them were black and whites, but because my father had the cows— they tried to tell him that he should take them because they gave more milk, you know, a Holstein gave a lot more milk, but their milk was not as rich. If you had a 3.5 creamAout of a Hol stein, why, that was a good Holstein; she gave that much more milk. But, my father had Jerseys that were going better than 7 percent, you see, so he couldn't see that. He still had Jersey cows that were filciling a three gallon pail tw a day, well, he stayed with his Jerseys.

SS: Did he find a Jersey bull?

LA: So he found a bull down in Oregon. He went to Portland and then when

they found out what he had— somebody gave him the name and he bought the young bull sight unseen on the recommendation of the person that he when he was down in this Portland-rVuha And, I remember when he came, he was sent on the railroad— sent in a crate, by freight railroad to Rubins— and so when my father went to get him he took me with him, because we didn't have trucks, you know, we just had a wagon with a team of horses, andyje had to go get him. So, well, he wasn't exactly fractious, but his eyes were rolling, you know, and gee, we didn't know whether he'd break out of that crate or not; poor thing. He was scared to death. His registered name was Alexander something- something. It was the name of a famous farm down there and they had manufactured this strain. So we called him Alex, Alex And then finally, just Alex. And we took him home and so, my father went out and he took the hammer; let him out into the corral. and he tamed right down. The poor thing was scared to death. After all!

And Alex was just real good. We didn't monkey with him because

when a Jersey bull gets to be three and four years old, why, and we didn't dehorn him. My father never dehorned his bulls, because part of the bulls work was to protect his cows, and we had lots of— we had mountain lions, we had bobcats, we had coyotes and you name it, besides wild packs of dogs that were going around the And Alex did a good job. He took care of his cows and calves. And they had a working situation. The Indian Reservation on on the back came up a hill to our corral and our barn up here, and when those packs of dogs would be running, Alex would commence to rumble, and my father would hear him, so he'd take a shotgun and go out and he and Alex would take care of the cows. (Chuckles; But one time, I'll never forget this; we had a pond, oh, gosh, how big— quarter of an acre, maybe, that we'd built because, that was one thing, some of the people let their cows drink terrible stagnant water, and my father could n't bear it, so he made arrangements for a series of ponds so that the water down and refresh itself, you know. So there got to be some algae in the stock pond— and one of the other thing that we would do, was take the rake sometimes and rake it out on the side, and I was rak ing out this one day, when there was some wiggle worms in there and I thought they were polywogs from the little black toads that we had, you know, and they're real black, and then the little springpeeper ones are a little grey one— well, here was these great, big ones. Of course, bullfrogs, and I didn't know what they were, and I thought, "Those are the funniest looking things. What are they?" So, I was down on my hands and knees looking into this water to see those little things and I was so intent I wasn't paying any attention, and the water on a pond is still, and it's like a reflection, and all at once, there was Alex's head- all he had to do was just hit me on the bottom and I'd be gone right in there! And, I didn't know what to do. I didnlt know whether to move,; I didn't know whether to yell or what. And he was turning his head like this, and he was looking there, and finally, I turned around and I said, "Alex, shame on you." I suppose he wondered what that girl was doing down there. (Chuckles)

SS: He was just curious.

LA: I guess, but I didn't know whether he was going to push me in that pond

or not. Isn't it funny, Sam, I hadn't thought about that stuff for fifty years.

SS: That really is a funny story. Then that place was no longer a sawmil?

You really turned it into a— did he take over a home that was there?

LA: No, we built— my grandfather was a carpenter and we built the first lit

tle old yellow house there. But we did have a white company house on the Star-Mill Ranch, a mile and a quarter out where the big sawmill went broke; after they'd got all of the available — There was a company house that had been built there where the men who worked in the sawmill ate. They slept in another house and then ate in that. But the cook's family, you see, lived in the house and it was wonder ful for our big family because the dining room was turned into a living room and there was a fireplace in it, and the bedrooms upstairs. The sawmill, the Lookout Lumber Company sawmill burned, and they never re built it, because they had used most of the timber there and they could not buy timber off of the Indian Reservation at that time. So, they used all the available— and some of it was very fine timber of the farmers' that just lived around. And after that was gone, there wasn't any use to build again.

SS: This was before your father and your family came?

LA: Yes, it was during that time. And then, so, my father bought the stumpage,

you see, and finished his life off getting rid of those stumps and turning it into a very productive farm. My younger brother has it now. It's still called the Starr-Mill Ranch. And Lookout is Pleasant Hill Ranch, and he chose to build his own on part of the Starr-Mill Ranch. So the modern, nice house with the pond and with the fields all cleared, my you go up there now and you wouldn't know there was ever stumps on it. And so, it's turned into a very nice ranch.

SS: Did it become considerably more difficult for your family to get by af

ter he left the job that he had before with the Weyerhaeusers? That was a pretty high up job;

LA: Yes, it was. Well, my father had some savings, it is true, and it was

hard because the only actual I didn't realize as as a kid thai, wc were that poor, because we always had food, we always had a place to sleep, we always had everything that we needed. I mean, my father was a good manager and all this sort of thing— but I realize now, that many of the things that escaped me at the time was my father taking things from the ranch, like selling o a best cow now and then, and he raised hogs and then the calves that he would sacrifice for available money when doctor bills came. My mother had three pregnancies. Three children were born after they came and she was ill so much of the time. And I know it must have been a great worry to my father. And then he was hurt— he died before my mother did. We had a big barn and, of course,we farmed with horses and we had the twelve horses and then some saddle horses, and this huge big barn— I don't know how many tons of hay we would put in there— and when he got up there this day, and he had a big— his horses always had grain, that was another thing— the people up there never fed their cows grain. "Whoever heard of giving oats to a milk cow?" She could eat whatever was out there. And so, he had ths big bins, big as this room probably — and when you ask about what he bought, he bought the power to roll those oats, because there's so much , a whole oat will go through a horse or a cow without if they don't chew it. Now a cow will get a cud and will chew it, but if a horse doesn't chew it first it will just go through it whole. So my father rolled these oats to get the maximum.

SS: In a mill?

LA: Yes. He took it to a roller mill in the Culdesac area and had it done

and then the Lenore area, there used to be a roller mill with those big— the farmers would bring their grain down there— the only railroad, see, the Rubins railroad was build later, but the old one that went up to Orofino was there when we came. So the big— and we had, down the hill there was a tram system to get down there so you wouldn't have to take it down in the wagon, you could unload it up there. And so they put the roller mill in down here. My father would, on certain days it was only his oats that would be going down the tram to the roller mill and then they'd put it in a bin and then he would sack it and bring it up, we didn't even have the bulk, see, we just had horses, and so we had to have horses and wagons, so we had to have gunny sacks.

SS: This tram was right by the rolling mill?

LA: It was at the top of— do you know the gummit area that goes to Gifford

from Lenore? You go up there—

SS: I was in there one time.

LA: Well, it was a long, tortous thing and up at Summit was the top of

the tram, so from Lookout we just had to come down through Gifford and to §ummit, then put it down the tram. The tram went from Sum mit down to Lenore and back. And, of course, the only power they had was the weight of the grain coming down that pushed the full ones back up. (Chuckles) I just took it all for granted, I thought that's the way it always was. I didn't know you had to have power on the tram. But, the bin, was about as big as this room that was full of this, my dad would put it in there and he fell out of the haymow, slipped. You know hay is slippery at times, and he slipped and struck his side on the corner of this oat bin that we had, and it reactivated the troubles that he'd had. And, we didn't know it then, but we found out after wards, that he had been infected with tuberculosis when he was a young ster, so tuberculosis killed him after the fall that injured this lung again, see. And he died in the infirmary at Lapwai the Indian Infirmary. And I helped to get him there because it was a government one and we'd bring him down treatments and he died on a table there. My brother and I were there. His system was just too worn out and he was old. The tuberculosis, I didn't believe it, a man that was out and as strong. Because I'd see him do miraculous things with strength. And, I just didn't believe it. But come to find out, his father was in the Civil War and he died with tuberculosis that he contracted in a prison camp down there. He came home and they didn't know those days, you know, and so, he lived and died after three years in the family home, where my father was a lad. And then that tuberculosis lived there, until he was so weakened, you see. I learned a lot, because I didn't know— they didn't know at the time that tuberculosis acted that way. It was the first World War, wasn't it, so many of the boys came home with tuberculosis that they found out that this was true? And that there was a history of tuberculosis in the families in most of those boys.

SS: You said that when you were going to teach, you almost didn't because

your mother was ill. Was that because of having so many children, or what was the cause?

LA: Yes. I think she was worn out and another thing, it was hard to— we

had to go to Lewiston for any help. There were no rural doctors there that did anything except to give ipecac and what-have-you. And, after all my mother had had those ten children and she was, :ns not too rug ged; not too frail, one of these things. And, I think, too, that she had pneumonia, I mean, she caught this heavy cold and just never recov ered. But the doctors up there just figured that everybody had colds and they couldn't see where that had done anything, you know. And so— but anyway, little, old Mother's heart just fiddled out and quit work ing, and this was it. I've often thought about it since; I've wonderer— now, I think she could have been helped. But in those days, it was just so far away and you couldn't get a doctor for love nor money and there was no hospitals. There was a hospital, the St. Joseph's Hospital was a funny looking little place at that time, and, of course, all of her children had been born at home, because that's the way they did it. By the way, I see in the paper where they're commencing to come back to home deliveries, and this will be a good thing. (Chuckles)

SS: When you moved out here did she do strenuous work? Was there a lot

of strenuous work?

LA: She never worked in the field, but you do a washing for a family of

eight kids- (Are you recording this?)

SS: Uh-huh. Oh, come on! Don't let it bother you.

LA: The work was hard because we had to haul the water and my father had a

washing machine, but it was one that you had to work. I was a youngster— we had a hired girl, but just living with a family of ten with all the washing and ironing and cooking and canning and what have you, was just a lot, and she often had a hired girl until I was old enough to take over and to do it, too. And it was just difficult. And I think if she had had a good doctor, good medical help early— but in those days, you just did the best you could with what you had, and nobody ever thought of going to the hospital, you took care of your own. And it was rough.

SS: There's one thing I want to ask you about back in Minnesota, and that

is: I have understood from what one or two of the old-timers had told me from around Potlatch, that the families that came out from the mid west, that that lumber country was rather rough country, and that the lumberjacks and the logging camps were pretty tough places there, and I'm wondering if as a youngster growingup there, you were shielded from all that, or if you knew lumberjacks, yourself, when you were growing up.

LA: This is real interesting. The first time that I really had contact

with the lumberjacks, as you say, my father had charge of this— work ing in Cranbrook, it was out a little way from Cranbrook.

SIDE C

SS: You were the pet of the camp?

LA: I was the pet of the camp. My mother was a perfect lady. She was—

and when the traveling preachers would come through! she always led the singing, play . She was the only there. She was highly respected and the men would just ask her to come down to the rough camp where they ate and bring the children. They were so hungry to see their own. And Mother, being a gregarious person and a nice per son, if I do say so, was glad to come down there. And she told us before we'd go, she said, "Now be on your good behavioi r," she said, "be cause these men,— and if they come and want to touch you or hold you on their la ip, we want you to behave." Now, my oldest brother was sixteen months old and then it was just the sister next to me and then I was six. And Howard was born, the second one, was born while they were there. And those lumberjacks — we were just spoiled, because they couldn't give you candy enough. They couldn't give you nickles enough. They couldn't you enough, they couldn't— it was a marvelous thing for us, in a way, because we were Jim Brackett's kids, to begin with, and my mother was the only woman there and she, very often— I could write a book on the things that she did for some of these men, and their families. And, before we left- we were there four years— there were other women who were coming in because the lumber co3:«oamT themselves realized that the men were going to be much happier. There wasn't the turnover.

SS: If they had their wives?

LA: They had to give a company house for them to live in. It was just out

in the woods in British Columbia, on the river out there, and it was just rough, that's just all there was to it. Just like it was at Bovill when they first come in up there. And so, it was a civilizing— The first time that I took charge of a program, I was seven years old, and we had a Christmas program, and Mother, of course, helped me. So one of the things I'll always remember, and it helped me in public re lations— all these men, there was about a hundred and fifty of them, were in the cookshack, you see, where they ate, was the biggest thing that we had. There wasn't any home or any office or any kitchen, but they all had to eat, you see, so this is where we were. And, my mother said, "Now, remember, dear, they're looking to you in place of their own family" So, we had som= songs, we led some songs: some of them could sing and some couldn't. And then, when we got ready to have the Christmas tree, and fix .some homemade candy for all of these fellows, and there was all of these Christmas goodies, popcorn, and I don't know where they got all of the stuff, so then we were going to spend the hour telling about the best Christmas we ever had. And it was real popular. Some of the fellows could be funny. But that is the first time I had ever seen really grownup men wipe their eyes. Because here they were, way out there away from their families. And when I told them about the best one, and the first thing you'd know the tears would be coming from their eyes. And I didn't know whs- to do, and Mother realized that I was And so she come over to my side, and she put her arm around me and she said, "And we are here, now, if there is any special requests that you'd like to have, now, we.! 11 do the best we can." So we wound up that way, and Mother played and sang and I sang two things that I couldn't even remember. And that fellow would come up and sing a ditty like Jingle Bells up here for the sake of the rest of them and another one would come up and ask for the Little Christ Jesus— I didn't know it, but he knew it, and Mother'd say, "Well, what key is it?" And she couldn't play the tune, but she could chord and so, we had a wonderful two hours, and you see, participation. Well, naturally when I had my next birthday, which was when I happend to be nine years old, I'll always remember that, the fellows said, "Oh, March the 23rd." We were leaving there because Dad wassent other places. In fact, we were sent back to Minnesota. And so, they all took up a collection and I got 70, it was just as if I had seven thousand today. Seventy dollars, because they wanted to buy me a dress. Well, any lit tle girl's dress you could buy for three fifty, or whatever then, you know. I know my mother got up and she said, "You understand that this is too much for a child. Would you like to have done something else?" And so, I still remember the old cook, because I met him later up here at Bovill. "No," he said, "put it in the bank so she can go to college'.' And everybody just laughed because they thought that Jim Brackett's girl would get to college anyway. But Jim Brackett's health had broken in the meantime, and so the girl used it to go to college. Twenty years later, practically.

SS: That's great. These men don't sound quite so rough and tough as you

might think then.

LA: No, because, they respected my mother and the family and their boss.

If they had not respected their boss, there wouldn't have been the re spect for my mother there or for the children. And when they went to Park Falls, they did have the prostitutes, they found them, because they were far away. They did go to the saloons. Well, some of them got drunk and they got into trouble, and my father when they were from his area, he'd go down to the jail and get 'em out. I mean, it was one of those things. And so, there were some. And I've heard of break ing up camps and everything, but my father never had this trouble. I don't know just why or how.

SS: You mean strikes and that sort of thing?

LA: No. No. we didn't. We had a walkout once out of a camp. I've just been

thinking about it. And the walkout was because, they got some Bohemian fellows in there that brought in bedbugs, and they didn't know about that, and when they brought some of the other fellows into this camp, and put them in those beds— why, I guess the bedbugs were just ter rible! And they had a walkout then, because they said, "We will not sleep in the There is always a camp jack, which is jack-of-alltrades, that carried out the commands of the camp commander, you see, he just said, well, he didn't know they were there. So they just cleaned them up right now. They just took everything out of that bunkhouse. And, I heard afterwards that there were upsurges of bedbugs forever after in that house, but they fumigated it. I can still remem ber. They painted it and they papered it; did everything they could. The Weyerhaeuser people were concerned with their people, at least they were in those days. I've heard now that some of the camps maybe aren't so good. I mean, not lately, but after we came West.

SS: When would that have been? That this happened?

LA: 1910. 1908, 1910, 1912. We came back in 1914; it was during the war,

that first war.

SS: That's when you went back to—?

LA: That's when we came from the East back to Lookout, back to Idaho.

SS: When you say you could write a book about some of the things that your

mother did for the lumberjacks and their families'i I'm just curious about what a couple of those things might have been.

LA: Oh, for instance; one of the young men that I can remember, his wife

was in Cranbrook, and it was about seventy miles on company railroad out to where we were. And they kept him so busy working there, and he needed the money, of course, because they had just a little kind of apartment, I mean a room, it was just a room as I understand it, as I think of it now. So, the little girl she was pregnant. She was to come out over a weekend; ride out on the company train and then ride back. And Mother said, "Now she can sleep at our house." Because she couldn't sleep in the bunkhouse because the men were paired up there and she was pregnant, and she was a nice little girl, so she at our house. And while she was there, she started to abort. And, what could she do? She was miles from— no doctor, no thing, you see. Well, Mother had to take over and she took care of her and then the company rushed a doctor out and a nurse from Cranbrook, then they took her back on the train. But little things like this. And then, one fellow had a son somewhere, I don't know where he came from, but he was a kid about fourteen, and he was unhappy at home, so he ran away to get to his father there. Well, when he got there, well, what was the man going to do with him? Well, Mrs. Brackett— just little things like this that I can think of—

SS: What did she do? Did she take in the boy?

LA: Yes. We just opened our home and she said, "Now," He'd sleep in the

boys' room and then Mother would see his clothes and things until the father could take him back. And then, one fellow wanted to get married. And so, he come up to Mrs. Brackett and he says, "Mrs. Brack ett, I can get my girl here, but can you marry us?" And she says, "No, I can't, but I can manage." And, he says, "How can we get a preacher?" And, she says, "The thing that you ought to do, is to go on into Cranbrook." Well, he had this crane thing that was and he said, "If I don't work and lay off work, ' the whole men." And she said, — And so he says, "Couldn't you get that priest to come?" Well, Mother was a Methodist, she wasn't a Catholic, and she wasn't sure just where— thfijFather's name was Camp—but she found out where it was and sent him a letter, and she says, "I can't get it here until I get the letter out. But I'll see what we can do." And, so they made arrangements and the old priest came back and married 'em. So the little girl, of course, was in Mother's home til she got married and the cooks, cqu se the men enjoyed this too, and they had the going away. And they were married just before one of the lunch times when the men were-'.all in from work. And so, they wanted to throw rice— I'll never forget that— and Mother said, "Well, I don't know, where you going to get your rice?" So they went to the cook, "Have you got any rice?" "Well," he says, "I've got rice, but it's company rice. I don't want you to throw it around on the floor. You can't very well cook it, can you?" And so, they worked and worked and worked — and I've often thought about it— and my mother solved it by cutting up newspapers and making confetti out of it. So we threw newspapers and saved the rice and we served the rice a rice pudding with raisins in it. Grat life, if you don't weaken!! And, then there were other little things, like staying with children, sometimes. And then they started building tents, foundation tents, with boards up about like this and a tent up over the top. And these women many times would come up there without medicines— one family came without anything to wash with, and that woman was down on the creek trying to rub her childrens' clothes on a rock and her husband's clothes. And they didn't hav:e soap, and they didn't know where to get it. Well, I think of it as somebody that could just be an adviser. And, then, of course, when we moved away, they finally formed a committee, that was the last thing Mother did, they almost died when they knew she was leaving, but my father was being sent back to Park Falls then in Wisconsin to openAon the Flambeau River. So, we went back there.

SS: So they set up a committee?

LA: They set up a committee then to do the work that Mother had been doing.

And the camp people— let's see, what was that fellow's name? He was the head clerk. You see, all of these men got their script, they didn't actually get money, just a little money that they could spend there, and then this script was sent back to where ever their bank was: I don t think it's done anymore, I don't know. I hearrv that companies sometimes are doing this now. But in those days, they had to because these men would have gone into Cranbrook and they'd get robbed and they wouldn't have had any. So the company made it possible for them; for the men that wanted to, now some of the men didn't want to. Either their fam ilies were older or didn't have any, or what have you- but the men who wanted to, could go in and say, "Look, I would like to have twenty-five dollars of my salary," The rest of it would go into a bank account at Park Falls or Willow River or where ever they came from. So the Weyerhaeuser people were good to work for. I've often wondered what's happened to them now.

SS: Did your parents know the Weyerhaeuser family very much? Know the

family?

LA: Yes and no. My Father position at Park Falls I was a

girl of about— (there was a short interruption) The young Weyerhaeuser, the young man that was the son of the original Weyerhaeuser was in Park Falls to see this new opening that my father— and he had a daughter that came that was supposed to be my age, and she was a city girl from Tacoma, see, that's the base for them, and I was taught to walk with my father, but she wasn't, and she come out there and that girl was exhausted. She couldn't walk those railroad ties. And there was a long bridge over a river, and that was her undoing. just looking and walking, you know, well she was looking at the water going down under there and it was just terrific. And I'll never forget that fellow said, "Well, oh, gee," he says, — she was a fat girl, too— she was too fat. I remember looking at the father and he says, "I would give all the money that I have in the world if my daughter could be like yours." And Dad,says, "Well, thank you, but, of course, she walks with me and I taught her,"because my father was six foot and I was a tall girl, too, and he kept saying— he'd know just exactly how many strides and so on and so forth— and on a rail road bridge, they're usually about like this, so I learned to stride just like he did. Pass one and go over the other, and she was taking one of these and then looking down here. I don't know what else he said, but I heard that. And he said, "Well, it'd be good for her if she'd walk, be good for her if you'd take her." He couldn't be bothered but my father could. And, in fact, I used to like to go out to the camps, because, oh, gee whiz, I got everything to eat I wanted and everybody carried me on a chip, and oh, dear, it was just so much fun being out there and be the middle of everything.

of what I've heard about Mrs. Bovill, in the town of Bovill, in the early years.

LA: My father didn't come to Bovill. He might have been sent to Bovill,

but, you see, he had those abscesses on his lungs and when they opened the Idaho things and the way he came back— and one time, I understand, he had the Lookout Lumber Company. At one time there was an organiza tion meeting of Idaho lumbermen, and they come up there and wanted Dad to take that, but Dad didn't want to get back in it. He wasn't too strong and he was developing the farm and he turned them down. And I think maybe it was a good thing, because my father was in his seventies and that was pretty old to open up some new.

SS: This would have been Bovill?

LA: Yeah, it would have been Bovill area. And so— oh, dear, what was the

name of the people that went in there?

SS: The Jonses.

LA: No, there was another one. And he was just working as a young lad in

the office in the Minnesota area when Dad came West, and then he came out No, there's another name. They retired in Lewiston. I didn't know them. However, one time, I went with Raleigh, we sold— this is the connection I told you— we sold our produce wholesale to the camps out there. And, at first, Raleigh would go into the head office there, and they would buy it and then their trucks would deliver it. Well, we found out that they were laying around there in a warehouse four or five. six days, and our's was real fresh, we just packed it and then the next morning it was in there. So, Raleigh went to the head office up there— I was just about to call that name again— and said, "Look, it's alright, I'd just as soon you would buy it, but let me deliver it." And they said, "Do you want to go out to those camps?" And he said, "Yes, I do, because I want them to have it fresh." And they kind of looked down their noses, you know, because they couldn't see what difference it made, so Raleigh did. And some of the camps would be ten miles out,I mean, would be quite a little ways, but he would rather do that and jet it there because he felt that it was his name and his reputation. So, one day when I was with him, I'd gone up to see this Louise Mc Donald, who was my friend, we were girls together, and so, on the way back, why, he had to go out to this Camp 6, and when I got out there this old cook come out there, an old man by the name of Sam White, and I didn't know him from Adam's off ox, and this was be fore I was married, so Raleigh said, "I'd like you to meet my friend here, she's teaching school down here, and this is Miss Brackett." And he picked up that, " Brackett," he says, "well, gee, I knew a Brackett, I used to have a boss that was a Brackett. His name was James Brackett. Do you know anything about it?" And Raleigh looked at me and I thought, well, gee whiz, I wonder about this. And so I said, "Well, my father is James Brackett," I said, "was it in Willow River,Minnesota? Or was it Park Falls, Wisconsin?" He says, "By God, it was both!" Gee, in that time, it was during the War and you couldn't get white flour— you don't remember this— but , gee, I had sacks of flour. I could get all the sugar—

SS: He really fixed you up then?

He really fixed me up. Every time Raleigh'd go up there, if he couldn't

do anything else, he'd send me a couple of loaves of white bread, be cause sometimes we had that awful old bread. And then, in the meantime Raleigh and I were married, but as long as Old Sam was up there— he got pneumonia— he was up there two years— he got pneumonia and died.

SS: AAt the end of the war?

LA: Yes, at the end of the war. But this was before we were married in

1918, you see. But, I'll never forget that, because he sure picked up that Brackett name.

SS: Must have liked your fatner and didn't forget.

LA: Yeah, he must have. And he cooked in a camp for eighty-six men. I

mean, he was one, they always had— they had a pastry cook, and they had a meat cook and then they had a vegetable cook, and then they had flunkies to set the tables and wash the dishes and they actually had to wash the dishes. They had huge big tubs— now they have dishwashers, you know. But in those days, these men, and they were usually young men, that were just learning the things that were the dishwashers. They had quite a system, but the Weyerhaeuser people then, everybody wanted to work for them because they were good feeders. Now, some of the camps got what they called secondhand groceries, I m not sure how they got 'em or what, but it could be damaged flour, phone ringing it Would be cereal meat, or whatever— but the Weyerhaeuser people always had the very best of food. And I can re member the oney and the brown sugar and the butter and things came in big wooden firkins, that high and this big around. They had coolers, they didn't have refrigerator— they did in the main things, but out in the camps it would be ice coolers. And they would pack the ice in the sawdust around and then have these wallLn things. But they seemed to manage and then they brought the meat in. But, huge, big ovens. Cooked with wood ' coal where they couldn't. Of course now, every- thing would be power and electricity.

SS: Well, does this mean— when you talk about these lumberjacks— I take

it, they didn't seem to you to be rough and tumble.

LA: No, I never experienced that at all. There was only one thing—

I would see some of the older ones, like on a Saturday night, they'd get a bottle and get drunk. But once in a while, I would see them taking a staggering man back to the bunk or something, but they never came near the house, and I never had any unhappy experiences at all. I just was safe from it.

SS: They seemed to you to be kind people.

LA: Yeah, they were open-hearted. They really were. In fact, they helped

each other out; they were just kinda like a big family, unless they were having a fight! As I think back now, I can remember that there was a camp down the railroad a little bit further that had a dance hall, they were rough. And they brought in these women from Cranbrook, and of course, I was a little girl, I didn't understand, all I knew was, that my mother wouldn't have been caught dead in that company. So there was this element there, but I was just saved from it because my mother and the family went with my father. And, I have heard my mother talk about — when she was a schoolteacher, too in Minnesota— when she met my father, and he had charge of the drive on the big river there and was a handsome young sprout around, and there was a girl in Minneapolis that he was seeing, a nice girl, but when he ran across my mother he fell in love with her and just couldn't wait to get married, and so they went to Minneapolis because my grandfather and grandmother lived there, aild so when the girl knew that he was coming, why, she wanted to see him— I don't know what it was for— and so my father took my mother to meet this girl. She felt badly about it, but then she realized the score was down and she was a nice girl. Mother said she was a nice girl. So, I suppose my father might have had other interests, I don't know, but this was the only one.

But there never was any question— it was a love match and my father

never deviated. And he must have had an especially nice relationship, as I think of it now, which is unusual, because Mr. and Mrs. Atwood, themselves, which were like the Billings down here in Lewiston, they are the head of the Weyerhaeuser outfit, were such good friends, and I was always invited to their kids' parties and all this sort of thing. I just took it for granted, boy, that's the way things were. I didn't know there was anything that wasn't that way. But, as I say, my mother was cultured and my father was too, he didn't have the high school education, but he had worked his way up until he had one of the highest jobs and he did it on his own, so to speak. I can still remem ber, he was a Mason. My father was not a church man, my mother- ws were raised in the Methodist ehurch, but my father was not a church member. When we kids were growing up, he'd put his thumb down and say, "Now, you go with your mother. Do as your mother says." And he was a per fectly good man, but he was not a church member. And he used to swear. But, you know, I was always kind of tickled— that was the only thingmy father never drank or was cruel, but he did have a lumberjack's voc abulary when he was out of patience or tried beyond— and he had the most remarkable swear words I'd ever seen, and I was so intrigued be cause, the farmers up there would Goddam this or something— but my father would have ones like, "I never saw the beat Jesus Christ why did this come to me?" And let's see, what was another one? In front' of his daughter, and then he'd look at me and he'd say, "Honey, I'm sorry." And there was a double-jointed one, what was that double-jointed one? It's been so long since I heard it. And there was a man that used to come up there that took the name of Moses, and when my father— that was in early days I heard about him— and when my father was disgusted with oh, somebody that was putting on an act that he figured that wasn't just right, why, he would always talk about that praying-bone? double-jointed so and so— let's see, what did he call him? It's been so long since I've thought about - he'd put all those things together— Oh, yes, ghost Christ, ghost Christ, he wasn't a real one, he was just a ghost Christ.

SS: Had he been involved in woodswork since he started working?

LA: Yes. When he was twelve years old, he went into the American Thread

Company as a camp boy, which means a water carrier, woodbox, and was a camptender. And, that's why he missed his high school, because he had to go to work. His father was tubercular. And his mother married. After his father died, she married again and his half brothers were Strouts. A favorite uncle of mine was Clarence Strout, that was next to my father in the family that came from Maine, and he worked his way up through the American Thread Company. The American Thread Com pany, I'd forgotten that they used to put on wooden spools. They had their own woodswork in Maine and it had to be soft pine for those spools or-W,didn't work. See, they had to have a place to make the spools out of this soft pine and then they sent them to the thread works. I was a big girl before I ever knew that, and he started there as a camptender. And then, because he liked it and because he was able to make money, and he helped keep his mother. And they had a farm, a rocky old Maine farm, that they were about to lose because this Strout that my Grandmother had married-

SIDE D

-- Grandma Strout, she was a big, heavy woman, and I didn't know at that

time that she wasn't my father's real mo Isn't it funny how that comes back?— Well, Goodness sake, Kid, I don't know what you're going to do with all this stuff!!

SS: Oh, well, we'll just save it and preserve it for future generations!

LA: But, where will it be? I mean, what are you going to do with it?

LA: My mother was a schoolteacher, and she got the materials and we studied

under her. And then after I was in the sixth grade and so on,— see my father was sent back to Park Falls, as I told you, and I went into the schools and I didn't know just where I would land. And my mother thought that probably, I would land in the fourth grade, but because of my read ing ability, because I learned to read early, you see, because I had all those books and she just put a book up there. Well, I didn't stop at a chapter, if I wanted to go, I just kept going on. And so, they gave me special tests and I landed in the sixth grade and the only thing that I wasn't up on was the sciences, like physiology. I knew some of it, but you see Mother didn't particularly go into physiology. But my mathmatics was good and my reading ability was good and my spelling— 'course when you're in the sixth grade you're already in junior high school, you know, instead of the seventh grade, I was going into the seventh grade. So, there were some of the bigger words like— the one that always kind of threw me that I couldn't get was asafetida— can you spell asafetida? (Chuckles) And these you see, that aren't common, you know. But wo.S supposed to be in this junior high school. So, I had special training to catch up in spelling.

SS: Then you did your early grades at home with your mother?

LA: Yeah, I started— I was in Willow River for the first three grades

because the family lived in the little town and my father was out in the camps and could come home on weekends, in Willow River well: I was in school. That's where I learned about head lice!! The Bohemians came in there— they just lived with their lice, there was nothing done about it. And I had long, brown curls, and my mother discovered those lice andinstead of cutting my hair right away like she should have; she had a fine comb— Did you ever see a fine comb? Well, it was alittle comb about that long, and on each side it fine teeth, that's why it was called a fine comb, and you combed it through there to comb the lice out on apiece of paper or rag or something with kero sene on it. Well, that was fine, except that they kept laying eggs and T:hey kept hatching and oh! And here was this long, brown hair. They never thought about cutting children's hair in those days, but finally, in desperation because it was just a fight every time I had to go to school; I had to get up an hour earlier so Mother could comb the lice out of my head, and then I'd go back to school and there were all these Bohemian kids and that long hair and the lice was just a and out of 'em, you know. Big, fat, gray lice. And my poor Mother! (Chuckles)

SS: Did she get rid of them eventually?

LA: She did, but she had to cut my hair and then she had to use kerosene,

and kerosene would take your hair out. It would take it out unless it was washed with a particular soap that she got at the drugstore. And most mothers; well, I know there was kids that never had their washed all winter, you know, it was just one of those things. And that's why the lice were there becaus was greasy. Yeah, we got rid of 'em! (Laughter) But, I have a sister next to me you see and we were the only two that were in school at first and then my brother went. Well, he had the short hair, you see, because it was real short, it wasn't too much, but girls were supposed to have beautiful, long tresses in those days. Ihad those long, brown curls. I'll never forget 'em! I suffered, I'll tell you. Finally, in desperation she took the scis sors and cut 'em off.

SS: Did the lice really hurt?

LA: No. No. It was just a nasty thing. No, they didn't hurt you. Yeah

they were just there. Greasy. I learned afterwards when my kids went to war, kind called greybacks. But they were a body lice. Now, we didn't have the body lice, at least I can't remember them ever being on my body, maybe it was because I was a youngster and there wasn't hair on my body. I don't know. But I sure had them in my head. The grayback was the same, both in the hair and on the body.

LA: Evidently. Because, as I said, thank goodness we didn't have them. I

guess Marjorie got a bunch of lice one time in South America, but our kids in the Army escaped them.

SS: Well, so then you

LS: Cooties, you remember them?

SS: Yeah, yeah, sure.

LA: Well, that's the greyback. The greyback cootie was this . ., big

fat-'louse and he was about an eighth of an inch long and the females, particularly, when they were about ready to lay eggs were big, shiny, greasy looking— I can still see 'em. (Chuckles)

SS: Then you spent some of those years though, learning from your mother

instead of in school?

LA: Yes. When there was no school, of course,—

SS: Like when you're out at Cranbrook and that.

LA: Yeah. Because I was six years old, you see, and there was no school

there. But I wasn't left and , mother was a teacher and she was bound and determined And then, it was fun for me, because I liked to read and I learned to read early. And maybe I shouldn't say this, but I'd pick up the funniest looking magazines down in that lumberjack place. Gee, it was interesting, you know. I'd take 'em home and my mother snatched 'em up. And I thought what was in those that I wasn't supposed to see! (Chuckles) So, I read early and late.

SS: There was one thing I was going to ask you, too, about the work that

your father would do for the company. Did he feel when he had to leave it— because you say that there was no compensation, and there was none of the compensation that they have; did he feel that he was not get ting what he deserved?

LA: No. Because they had no indication, they had no concept that. If there

had been any, and then he hadn't of got it, then, of course, he would have gotten it. I think he would have felt depirived, but nobody thought anything about it. You worked when you could and if you couldn't work — There was a form of welfare, but, you see, my father didn't have to fall back on that because he had other resources. He had this land out here in Idaho and he also had a timber claim in Oregon, down in the,oh gosh, on that river—

SS: The Rogue?

LA: Yeah, it was way down there. And so, he had other resources. He didn't-

I've often wondered about bringing the big family on the train out— how did he get all this money? How did he manage? And he was dead and gone before it ever occurred to me, how. We always just took it for granted. As I say, we always had clothes, we always had whatever we needed. We always had shelter. There was Dad and Mother and they never talked about any of their problems. We kids were never— I'm sure now, that my father must have had many anxious moments, but we were never aware of it. The only time that I ever wanted anything that I didn't get right away was this pet horse that I told you about.

SS: No, I don't think so. This was out here?

LA: That was at Lookout. When we were there the first time i. had a pet

pony, and old mare that was nice, but of course, she passed away while we were back the second time. And when I came back, I had a colt that belonged to somebody out there and he had not been altered. And he was a bay, and oh, naturally, I just thought that was the most marve lous horse I ever saw. And I rode him, because he was in the pasture there. I didn't know who he belonged to, I was just a kid. And, of course, time, the fellow come and got him and took him away and altered him and sold him. Gee, my heart was broken, you know, I didn't have any horse. Then we went East but I still remembered that, so when we came back, my father- I had to go to Gifford to high school or else leave the family and go to Lewiston, and as I told you, my mother wasn't very well. So, I completed the eighth grade and passed the examinations at Lookout §chool, this Lookout School, and then I had to either go— So, I was coming fifteen, I was past fourteen, and my father gave me a team of mares for my birthday, and I was to have half the increase. I helped him out there, and Dad knew about this and he said, "Well, I'll tell you, Lora," he says, "We'll keep the mares bred."- and they were Belgians, a beautiful team of Belgians— and as it turned out, one of the horses was faithful, and I just loved her. This Babe, she wasn't as pretty as Pet, but Pet was ornery. She was a nasty woman! And so, I used the team, but I rode Babe to school my freshman year to Gifford. Well, then that spring Babe got heavy, you see with colt, and I just felt that I couldn't ride her anymore. I just couldn't ride her. So, I rode some of the other horses for a while, but it was un satisfactory. After you once have a good horse under you, it's just like a good car, you just aren't easy. So about that time,Frank Jacobs had this beautiful horse that was a mankiller that he took him on a debt from Pendleton. He was a Hamiltonian, I found out afterwards. But, I'd never seen anything built like it. A mane thirty-six inches beautiful mane. A crooked stripe, dark brown, a crooked stripe on his nose, and he'd throw up his head, and here was these big, red nostrils; Oh, he was the most beautiful horse I'd ever seen.4 And he was in a field and they couldn't catch him, and the Jacobses went to Lewiston, and what were they going to do with this horse? And so, I was riding old Babe back and forth, and there was that beautiful horse out there. And finally they took the horses out and Jack was left alone. I knew his name was Jack. I wanted that horse, and so I wrote to Frank, and I said, "Frank,"— see he's a brother to this friend that lives in Bo vill— and I said, "Frank," I said, "Could I have Jack to ride to school for his keep?" I knew X couldn't buy him, or I didn't think I could buy him. And Frank said, "I wondered what I was going to do. He'd just have to stay out there at the strawstack, you know. And in the winter time he'd have to eat snow, because there'd be no water." So he said, "Yes, Lora, why not take him and ride him?" Because he knew he'd have good care and he'd have his oats and stuff, because my father always had it. So, I had to catch him, and I did. I went down and he was— and I couldn't catch him the first two or three times, so, they run him into a shed. They said, "We got that son of a gun in the shed now, if you think you can handle him, come and get him." So, boy, I knew I could handle him. So, I had old Babe and I went down there, and one of the neighbor kids said, "I want to go with you. I want to see this."

And I said, "Okay, come on." So, I went down and they had him with a

big, heavy halter and a double chain. Have you ever seen a heJ-ter chain? It has big links. A double chain through a hole in the manger to that horse's head. I don't know what they did to him. They were carrying water and feed to him because nobody could take him out of there. But you know, that horse never— he was flighty and he was highheaded, but he wasn't vicious,, at least he wasn't with me. And I walked in and I just felt so sorry for that horse when I saw how he was, and I walked in and I put ™.y hand on his rump and I said, "Well, gee whiz." And he promptly jumped into the manger! Adn, I thought, "Well golly, I shouldn't have done that, I should have spoken to him first." And so I went up and I said, "You're in kind of a—" and he was blowing, you know, and gee, he just didn't know what, so I said, "Well, boy, you can't get in there." And about that time the men cfime for him, and they said, "Get out of there." And I said, "Well, what are you going to do?" And they picked up a club. And I says, "Oh, no, you're not." I says, "This is Okay, go on out." And so, I talked to him, and I went up and I put my hand on that halter and he trembled. Well, a horse that trembles is afraid, he isn't vicious. And so, I commenced to talk just nice, "Gee," I said, "Poor boy," and I says, "gee whiz, you sure have ahandsome mane"— Ichanged my voice. And, Isaid, "pretty good shoulders, too, and if you live long enough you're going to have a good front leg." And he kinda looked around, you know, and I said, "You don't have to be afraid, we've got to get out of this manger." I said, "Let's back up." And so I took hold of the halter. And, I said, "Now, let's get the foot out." Well, he wasn't about to 4aV foot out. And Ithought, how am Igoing to do this, he was in the manger and there was only about this much room, and I didn't want him to hurt me. So, I said, "Well, let's see—" So I went down the his leg, and I picked up his fetlock, and on the underside ofAhoof was a burr, I don't know what kind of a burr— do you know how a horse's frog is under there? and then the hoof is close in there, and that burr was under that soft frog. So, I said, "Well, gee whiz." And I kept on talking, and he was smelling of me, "We'd better get this out." So I reached in my pocket and took out a pencil and Itook it and got it out, and I said. "Boy, that's better." So, I put it outside the manger.

And I says, "Now, let's back off." And he took the other one out and

that was it, and I took him out. They wanted to see me saddle him, and I had my saddle on my saddle horse, and I didn't want to put the other saddle on, because when you're kinda caught, you'd better have your own gear; so I took my saddle off, which was a cavalry sad dle, by the way that was given to me when I was a kid, and I put it on him, put the saddle blanket on him, it was a double rear, with a double cinch, and I didn't know whether to cinch up that hind cinch or not, you know, sometimes horses will buck with a hind cinch when they don't with a front one. And then, I thought, "No, that saddle will be front heavy and the hind would be loose." So,I did, but I didn't cinch it up too tight, and I just kept talking to Jack and I got on and he just never did a thing. He kinda threw his head up a little bit, but he didn't jump; he didn't buck, he didn't act like he wanted to throw me off and I said, "Okay, come on let's go." And the girl that was with me, she was on her horse, and we rode about about five miles off and five miles back, and I said, "This is it." And so I kept him and I rode him then the next year,— this is the long tale that I'm leading up to. The cavalry came into Lewiston, well, natur ally Frank would like to get his money out of the horse, so they sent the cavalry man up to the school at Gifford to look at the horse. So the cavalry man came and Trapped on the door; I was a sophomore; and he said, "I'm looking for Lora Brackett." So my superintendent came in and he says, "Lora, there's a man wants to see you." And I went out and here was this strange man and he said, "Are you Lora Brackett?"

And I said, "Yes," He said, "Do you have a horse that belongs to

Frank Jacobs?" And, I said, "Yes, I do." "Well," he said, "I'm from the cavalry." And he showed me all this— "We are buying horses. I thought I was going to faint. I had ridden him down to Gifford and he was in „- paddock and I had to take him down there. And he opened this car, it was a funny looking little, old car, and he took out a saddle. And, I said, "Are you going to ride him?" He says, "Yes, I have to ride him." I said, "Well, you know he's hard for a man to ride." I didn't know what to say. Could I just say, "You can't ride him?" Could I say, that only a girl can ride him? What do you say? "Oh," he said, "never mind about that." And, you know, I'll never for get, 'cause I stood back there and Jack, of course, was looking to me and yet here was this man, and he just commenced— I'll never forget the way that strange man, and he brought his head up and he turned his head, like this, and his eyes commenced to— and that fellow just went right on and put the saddle on, and he jerked up the cinch, you know, and he had a bridle— I rode him— one of the things that Jack didn't like was the curb, I found out afterwards that they'd almost cut his tongue in two with these curbs with the roller— you've seen those big curb bits with the roller in there? So, I had a link bit, and I just had one strap over his head and one strap for a rein, that's all I needed. So this fellow— and he should have known when he put that bit in his mouth that he was in trouble— but I don't know what happened but in the meantime, the word got around the school and there was about fifteen kids that come down there to see the show. And, do you know, that man, when he tried to mount; Jack foiled him for two or three times, and it made him mad, because here we all were.

And so, he jerk

ed him down and he did get into the saddle, but he couldn't stay, he tried three or four times and Jack threw him just as regular as he could. And, I didn't know what he was going to do, and I didn't know what my— you see I didn't own the horse. I didn't know. But after he had thrown him, it looked to me like he was going — I don't know where he got the quirt, 'cause he didn't have the quirt, and it looked like he was going to beat him. And, I went up, and I said, "Now, evidently you don't want this horse for cavalry," and I said, "do you have an order from Frank?" And he didn't have. He just come up there to try the horse. "No," he said, "you're right." And he just put on his hat and went on about his business. But, you see, I knew that I would lose the horse, and I was heartbroken and I went home. And my father, who had come to teris with the horse, but still there was a feeling of opposition there, and my father tried to say, "You've a couple of good horses, what do you want— why do you want to buy this?" Oh yes, and the price was forty-five dollars! Well, forty-five dollars to us in those days, was like four hundred and fifty now. I mean, I didn't know how we'd ever do it. And so, I was eating my heart out and riding my horse to school, and I didn't know what was going to hap pen, and finally my mother came to my— I thought of it afterwards— and she said, "Jamsie she said, "you know" and she talked him into buying the horse and they didn't know how they could buy it, and Dad sold two of his beautiful, wonderful yearling heifers and bought the horse for me. Another thing, that Dad didn't want him, he was old I mean the horse had had a tough history in the Pendleton area, and he was about twelve years old, at that time. And, as my dad said, "You're buying an old horse ftwwon't last you too long." But he lasted long enough so I brought him with me.

SS: Brought him over here?

LA: When— I always took him with me to teach, yes, because I had him to

ride, yes.

SS: How old were you then, when you started teaching?

LA: Eighteen.

SS: So, you'd had him for six years— no, maybe not quite that long.

LA: Yeah, I got him that first year, you see, and I graduated from high

school the spring of 1916, and I went to summer school and then I taught 1916-1917, and 1917-1918, when I was married

SS: This horse,— you were really the only one that could—

LA: I didn't say that, my mother— because I never mistreated him, and be

cause I was a woman. He had been manhandled and mistreated. I know what happened at Pendleton. I never knew. I knew that he was such an outlaw that they couldn't use him down there any more. And because he was supposed to be a mankiller, he almost killed somebody, but they must have roughed him a lot, because— and Frank, as I say, had to take him in on a debt. They had a grocery store there. But my father thought I should be happy with the old horses I had, but I just fell in love with that horse.

SS: So, really, he wasn't afraid of women then..

LA: No. And I put my mother on, but I don't know whether he would have

been nice to her if I hadn't . He fell in love with me, is what happened.

SS: When you described approaching him that first time in the barn, sounds

like you weren't fearful of him, and that must have been important, too.

LA: No, I wasn't.

SS: Sounds like you really loved horses.

LA: Yeah. I don't know, I used to wish that I could raise horses, and then

it didn't turn out that way, because I came down here and fell in love with a mechanic. I was going to go home at Lookout and fall heir to the ranch up there and raise horses, and then— I had three beautiful mares and about that time, I realized that if I raised those colts, I'd have to sell them. And then, I came down here to teach. I was saving my money, even at sixty dollars a month and then I was going to teach school til I could get a hundred dollars a month and then I could save half of that, or I thought I could, and I'd soon have my horses going.well. I guess fate had other things to do, because I fell in love with Raleigh and the horse business went out. But, never forget, because I brought him with me, and Paul Albright thought, and he was a good horseman, and he could lead Jack around, but I don't think he ever could have ridden him. But, after I was married, that horse knew that that man was— and Raleigh 4:ould get on him and he'd plod along on the trail over to the homestead and carry my husband, and I'd look at that horse and I'd think, "I know you are smart, but I didn't think that smart!"

Then, I'd get on him and ride him back,

you know, and we'd burn up the— and we had a wonderful time. And, my mother-in-law, she put her foot down because, especially after I was pregnant. She didn't know I was pregnant for two or three months, you know, and then it came out that I was pregnant. So, she talked to Paul Albright, and they got to Raleigh and I mustn't ride that horse anymore. Well, he was turned out on the mountainside up there and I hadn't ridden him for about six months, because it was just before my first baby was born, and it was in the early spring, and the horse was used to being out and he was out with the colts and what have you, and one day, Paul Albright decided that he was going to give them acon ite, now this was a spring thing that they gave horses in those days to help them shed their coats and give them a spring tonic and all that. And, when he got ahold of Jack, why, Jack wasn't about to have it, and I wasn't there. And Paul Albright, he never saw a horse he couldn't do with, so they— as I got the story afterwards— they put this big halter on Jack's head and then they put the rope up over the limb of a tree and the two fellows pulled on it until his head was_up, and then you " ... your horse a bottle, put the liquid side g Amouth. So Paul went up there to drench him with his head held up, and that horse was so active and so worked up that he not only struck the bottle, broke the bottle, but knocked Paul over, jerked the— broke the rope over the thing and took off over the hill. Well, the boys took after him, and he didn't make a curve, and he fell on that hillside, you could see him, fell down into the brush, and over and broke his neck. And so, then they had to come home and tell me. And all they brought me; they skinned the hair off his tail, atfd that's all I ever had. I didn't go up to see him at all, I just felt so bad.

SS: He went down fighting. It sounds like.

And he did. I just felt so bad. I'm real sorry because I hadn't had

my hands on him for several weeks, they didn't want me to ride any more. And, Ijust often felt that maybe, he felt that I had deserted him, or something, I don't know. But, anyway, that's what happened. Paul was trying to— he wasn't being mean to him, really, he was trying to help him, he thought

But sometimes it seems to me that being strongwilled is another way to—

Yeah, I'm sure the horse felt that they were impining on his rights. He wasn't sick. If he'd a been sick, why it wouldn't have made any difference, but the aconite was supposed to be— So, anyway, that was the end of him, so I didn't have to worry about him any more. I've never had a horse since, so— I married a mechanic, so now I drive a car. See that Gremlin out there?

SS: Yeah.

Well, Grandma has a reputation of a heavy foot, so my kids got toge

ther a couple of years ago, it's a 1973 Gremlin, and Ibroke it in, and it goes like all get out Imake about twenty-four or twenty-six miles to the gallon. And so my oldest son come in and he says, "Mother," he said, "how many miles you got on that?" Well, I had about ten thousand miles on it then, just broken in nicely. And he said, "How would you like to have a governor on it?" "A governor? What would I need a gov ernor on my car for?" And finally, I said, "Now, look," I said, "I haven't been stopped for a long time for speeding, and my reputation's good. I haven't had to pay a fine for a long time." He says, "Okay, but remember, just one more time and you're gonna have a governor." And so, I was coming up the hill over there home, and this hill from 5oicup, you can't drive forty miles an hour and get up there. So I got at the top and a policeman jumped out and my conscience was just as clear as could be. And I happend to look up in the mirrow and he was jumping and down and waving his hands and

Segment Synopsis: Acquiring a homestead in 1916, on rough land near Juliaetta. Homesteading for more
than two years. Use of space in the homestead shack. Raising money for the place.
Starting a herd of cows.

Segment Synopsis: Interest in becoming a teacher; teacher training, and pressure from the county superintendent.
Teaching at the Pilot Rock School Combining subjects. Looking to schoolteacher for
community intellectual leadership. Debate topics, from the ridiculous to the serious.

Segment Synopsis: Father lost health through fighting severe forest fire as logging superintendent for
Weyerhaeuser at Park Falls, Wisconsin. He then brought his family to Lookout, Idaho,
joining his father who had already come as a millwright. Mother's desire to have a
permanent home. The sawmill at Lookout became their stump ranch. Father's raising
a dairy herd, clearing the land.

Segment Synopsis: She was one of three in first graduating class at Gilford. More about father's dairy
herd. Purchasing his Jersey bull, Alex; Alex's life on the ranch. Father's development
of ranch. Difficulties for the family. Taking oats to the tramway to Lenore. Father's
accident in the barn reactivated his health problems and led to his death.

Segment Synopsis: As a child of six, she was the pet of the lumber camp near Cranbrook, B.C. Lumberjacks'
need for family remembrance. She led their Christmas celebration with mother's help.
Lumberjacks gave her $70 on her ninth birthday, which she later used for college.
A walkout was ended by fumigating the bunkhouses.

Segment Synopsis: Weyerhaeuser compared his daughter to Jim Brackett's. Father turned down offer to
work at Bovill. Delivering garden produce to the camps, she met a cook who'd worked
for her father back East; and he gave her gifts. Weyerhaeuser kitchens.

Segment Synopsis: Rougher elements of lumberjack life. Parents were much in love. Their close relationship
with the Atwoods, who owned the company. Father's colorful swearing. He started as
a camp boy at American Thread Company woods operation in Maine at the age of twelve.

Segment Synopsis: History of horses she had at Lookout. Her experience with Jack, a "mankiller" horse.
Getting him out of the barn and riding him the first time. A cavalryman tried to ride
him in front of the kids, without succeeding. Mother talked father into buying a horse
for her. The horse loved her, but hated men.